Warning notice issued to East of England Ambulance Service over multiple failures

A warning notice has been handed to the region’s ambulance service over multiple failures including staffing levels and call wait times.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said the service had also failed to meet requirements for the organisation’s culture and did not “act on information from staff to develop and improve the service”.

East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST) was only removed from special measures in January 2024 after the CQC rated it as requiring improvement in four out of five areas in July 2022.

Responding to the latest notice, CEO Neill Maloney, who joined the trust in August last year, said: “Our patients expect and deserve good quality care from us. I am sorry that the trust has not always met this expectation.

“Following the CQC warning notice, we have made rapid improvements in the areas they identified, and we are determined to continue to improve our service to patients.”

The 2022 CQC report had found there was a disconnect between the senior leadership team and the local leadership teams, staff did not always feel respected, supported and valued and did not always receive and keep up to date with their mandatory training and the service did not always have enough staff to keep patients safe in terms of emergency and urgent care.

The CQC has now issued the warning notice under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 for “failing to meet requirements relating to staff training, staffing levels, investigation of controlled drug incidents, call wait times, the culture of the service and acting on information from staff to develop and improve the service”.

The CQC said its powers when a warning notice is issued included imposing conditions on the trust, or suspending or cancelling its registration. Failure to comply with the steps required by the CQC could constitute a criminal offence.

The ambulance service covers Cambridgeshire Bedfordshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.